Make, Answer, and End a Call

Making a phone call

How to call someone by contact or username:

Find a contact or type a person’s name in the search box.

Point to the contact’s presence icon.

Do one of the following:

Click the Phone icon to call the contact using Skype for Business. If the person has been enabled for Skype for Business phone service, it will call them via Skype for Business. If not, it will call their desk phone.

Click the arrow next to the Phone icon and select a number.

When the call is accepted, use the audio controls to mute, unmute, and so on.

How to call someone using a phone number:

From the contact or phone view, enter the phone number in the search box as the 10-digit number starting with the area code.
Note: For international numbers, enter the number as you would on a cell phone (011 ### phone number). When dialing internationally starting with 011 using the Skype for Business desktop software, the 011 prefix will not appear once entered, but the call will still go through.
TIP: Use your keyboard’s number pad, or copy and paste the number to enter the number.

Press enter on the keyboard, or right-click and select Call.

Use the audio controls to mute, unmute, and so on.

When you're finished with the call, click the red Phone button in the window to hang up, or just close the window.

How to save a phone number as a contact:

In the Skype for Business desktop interface, type the phone number in the "Find someone or dial a number" search box.

When you see the number in the search results, right click on it and choose Add to Contacts List and choose a contact group.

You will now see the number in the contact group in the interface.

To have the number appear as a name and not a number, create a contact within Outlook and associate that number with the contact.

To have it appear in Favorites, right click on the contact and choose Add to Favorites.

Answering a phone call

When you receive a voice call, you will see and hear a notification on your computer, as well as your Skype for Business-enabled phone if you have one. Where you answer the call will determine your audio device.

How to answer a phone call:

When someone calls you, an alert appears on your screen.

TIP: You must have your headset plugged into your computer in advance of receiving a voice or video call request. It does not work to plug in your headset when you receive the call. If you work at a desk and would like to set up a secondary ringer so that you hear a notification on your computer and headset, follow these directions.

To answer the call, click anywhere in the blue area.

Click Ignore to reject the call and send to voice mail.

Click Options to do other actions:

Send the call to Voice Mail.

Click Mobile or Home to redirect the call. Note: You must first set up your mobile and phone numbers within Skype for Business to see this option.

Reply by IM to send an instant message reply instead of audio or video. Note: If the person can’t receive an instant message because he/she doesn’t have Skype for Business launched, you will see a notification.

Set to Do Not Disturb to reject the call and avoid other calls.

End a call

How to end a call:

When you’re finished with the call, click the red Phone button in the window, or just close the window.

Do you have friends or family that use Skype for Business at other universities or organizations?

KU has open federation for Skype for Business, which means you can connect with friends and colleagues at more than 850 organizations around the world that also offer open federation. You can add a non-KU person at an open federation site to your contacts list and immediately begin a chat or S4B-to-S4B voice or video call. Check the Skype Directory to find organizations that have Skype for Business open federation.